NPCC Wins Contract Offshore Qatar

Abu-Dhabi based National Petroleum Construction Co., a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., has been awarded the engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning of offshore facilities of the Al Khalij North development project in Qatar. The contract was signed by Patrick Pouyanne, managing director of TotalFinaElf, and Aqeel Madhi, general manager of NPCC, on July 25.

The scope of work under the contract covers two platforms, including a wellhead platform and the other a process platform, about 16 km of 10" and 16" sub-sea pipelines with one 10-km long power cable. The duration of the project is about 20 months from the date of the contract and should be operational by March 31, 2004. The development, when completed, will increase Qatar's crude output by 80,000 barrels per day.

The Al Khalij field was first discovered in 1991. Its central area was developed in 1997, followed by the eastern area which was developed in 2001. In both the cases, NPCC played a key role by executing the EPC offshore contracts for TotalFinaElf E&P Qatar.
The current contract comes close on the heels of a recent contract awarded to NPCC for construction of a pipeline by Maersk Oil Qatar AS for the offshore Qatar Block 5 Development Plan 2001.

The overall scope of work includes project management, engineering design, procurement, fabrication, surveys, offshore installation, testing and certification of the pipelines (rigid and flexible). The total length of the pipelines is approximately 95 kilometers in diameters ranging from 8 inches to 20 inches. As per the contract program, the offshore installation will be carried out in four different campaigns over a period of one and a half years.